Alex Beer
‘From quite a young age, and throughout growing up, my Mum has always been a big influence on my view of life, particularly with regard to health and nutrition. I suffered badly from eczema as a child, and Mum would Read more »
People
A selection of past cover stories about local people from in and around Marshwood Vale.
Greg Rowland
‘I live in Honiton now but I was born and bred in Coly View, Colyton and moved to Honiton after I left the army. There’s quite a few generations of us in Colyton. We go back as far as 1331, Read more »
Janet Gleeson
‘I was born in Sri Lanka—then called Ceylon—and spent my early childhood on a remote tea plantation. The bungalow where we lived was surrounded by fields of immaculately kept tea, shaded by jacaranda trees. It had been built in the Read more »
John Fisher
‘I was born in Boston, Lincolnshire, in 1971, but I don’t really feel like I’m from anywhere in England. My father was in the Royal Air Force so we bounced from RAF base to RAF base throughout my childhood. I Read more »
Helen Carless
‘My mother and father met in Cyprus, where my father was doing his National Service. He was Welsh, and she Cypriot, sadly both dead now. They were both quite young, perhaps a bit naïve, but terribly romantic, and they returned Read more »
Richard Lane
‘I was born in Hampton, Middlesex, when my dad was away in the Korean War. He was in the Navy until I was about three. We then moved to the edge of Epping Forest with my younger brother and sister Read more »
Alice Allan
‘When my husband Chris got taken on by the Foreign and Commonwealth, I was given some advice by a fearsome ex-ambassador’s wife: “Get an English teaching certificate so that you have something to keep you occupied while the children are Read more »
Jamie Turner
‘I’m quite proud of my palindrome birth date, 5/4/45. We were in Rochester, where my Dad was in the Navy at Chatham Barracks, but the next year we moved to Dormans Park near Lingfield. I have an elder brother, Charlie, Read more »
Clare Trenchard
‘My father was in the Army and made the most of the various sporting opportunities which army life offered after the war, riding in point to points in Germany and representing Great Britain as part of the army Pentathlon team Read more »
Alan Brown
‘My family’s from Wool; I was born and brought up in the village, and still live there. I’m now the sixth generation of hurdle-makers, a trade we can trace back to the 19th century in our family. Right from when Read more »